The GI community needs your help.
In a request from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to review physician services, the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) Relative Value Update Committee (RUC) is performing a comprehensive review of the valuation of physician work and practice expense for more than 100 endoscopy procedures. To provide fair and accurate valuations, the American Gastroenterological Association and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy are asking physicians to complete surveys of these endoscopic procedures.
These surveys will directly impact how codes and procedures are "valued" and ultimately reimbursed. The GI community needs significant participation from gastroenterologists to complete these surveys of physician work in order to provide realistic recommendations to the AMA’s RUC. If a minimum number of responses for each survey are not obtained, GIs are at risk that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will make final decisions regarding valuation without consideration of our input.
How can you help?
If you are selected for a survey, please participate. It is critical that you respond if you are selected to participate in any survey. Do not forfeit this important opportunity to provide input into the valuation of GI services. Whether you perform routine esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and colonoscopy, or more complex procedures such as endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), endoscopic ultrasound or stents, your help is needed.
On the following page is a list of upcoming surveys. We also urge you to add your name to the roster of individuals to be contacted to complete the RUC surveys of physician work for endoscopic procedures shown in the timeline.
To volunteer, e-mail surveys@asge.org with your name and contact information. Based on the list of surveys in the timeline, please specify which procedure surveys apply to you. Additional information will be provided prior to the start of each survey. To learn more, visit www.gastro.org/RUC or contact Leslie D. Narramore of the AGA (lnarramore@gastro.org; 410-349-7455) or Sam Reynolds of the ASGE (sreynolds@asge.org; 630-570-5643).
Sincerely,
Loren Laine, M.D., AGAF President, The AGA Institute
Thomas M. Deas Jr., M.D., MMM, FASGE President, American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy
